A professor of history and pediatrics, Peter concentrates on medical history. His special area of teaching focuses on the role of epidemic diseases and public health in the history of racial groups in the Western Hemisphere. He has written on the history of pneumonia, diphtheria, rheumatic fever and his newest book, Old Paint: A Medical History of Childhood Lead-Paint Poisoning in the United States to 1980 (published by Rutgers University Press (ISBN: 0813529875) deals with lead poisoning. His past research centered on unwanted children and the evolution of the foster care system and on the history of surgery.

Old Paint: A Medical History of Childhood Lead-Paint Poisoning in the United States to 1980
(2001), New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press

P.C. English, Rheumatic Fever. A Biological, Epidemiological, and Medical History of Rheumatic Fever in America and Britain from the 18th to the 20th Century
(1999), New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press

Andrew Cliff, Peter Haggett, Matthew Smallman-Raynor, Measles: An Historical Geography of a Major Human Viral Disease: From Global Expansion to Local Retreat, 1840-1990,
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
(1999)